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Wrist Watch Camera Now with Color Display

Posted by chrisd on from the neat-as-heck-but-not-a-nikon dept.

camborg writes "Casio announced (in this Japanese Press Release) a new version of the famous wrist watch camera, which goes on sale in japan on the 23rd of November. The new model features a STN 4096 color display to directly view the color images on the wrist. The watch has a bit updated look and feel. Everything else is pretty much the same as the WQV-3 series color wrist camera. No release date for the USA yet. Photos of the watch can be seen at http://www.i4u.com"

5 of 73 comments (clear)

  1. Hmm yes and no... by pigeonhk · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Easier for us to take photos anywhere anytime...

    Easier for us to be taken anywhere anytime too...

    For example, a link from the press release, http://members.tripod.com/mcmach1/voyeur.html.

    I'm not saying it's evil, but I'm quite sure there are situations that you don't want people to see =)

    --
    If you have the source, you have the whole world...
    1. Re:Hmm yes and no... by mliu · · Score: 2, Interesting

      heh, reminds me of the cellular phones here in Japan. Among the (numerous) ways that they're a million times better than American cell phones is that some of the more recent models have a built in digital camera, and you can email the pictures to your friends' phones. (All modern Japanese cellular phones have good enough displays to display small pictures on. Some even 24 bit color I think).

      They're advertising campaign actually focuses on how you can use the cameras to take compromising pictures of people hehe. The common theme goes something like this:
      A guy's sleeping at his desk, when he's supposed to be meeting this girl. The girl's friend sees this and snaps and picture and emails it to the girl. When the guy later shows up, and gaves a lame excuse, the girl triumphantly whips out her photo-cell phone and the guy is caught in his lie. Outside you see her friend doing a victory dance as the logo and theme music come on.

      And just my opinion, but somehow having a watch with a built-in camera seems nerdy, but having a cellular phone with a built-in camera seems cool. Probably a hold over from the fact that calculator watches were never cool, but having the best cellular phone on the block has always been cool....

  2. I hope it fares better than the previous models by alewando · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Because the reviews historically have not been kind.

    It's neat. It's a swell toy. But it's expensive and produces photos of dubious quality. Anyone who has a couple hundred dollars to waste on something like this probably knows what he's getting into, but it's a damn shame the technology isn't quite there yet.

    Watches are something everyone has, and it would be neat to get to the point where digital cameras are equally ubiquitous (albeit a bit scary from privacy and surveillance perspectives). But what are the odds that a consumer line like this will catch on when its flagship example is such a poor value? Most mainstream consumer products we see today started out expensive and crappy, but many more aren't around today because of those same drawbacks.

    I suppose it'll change when another big player like Sony gets into the act. Though Sony is every bit as proprietary as Casio and perhaps more so, we'd at least benefit from having different proprietary techs banging it out on the open market. And maybe if I can transfer my low-res expensive watch photos to my low-res expensive pda, I'll feel better about having already wasted my money.

    1. Re:I hope it fares better than the previous models by wirefarm · · Score: 3, Interesting

      And maybe if I can transfer my low-res expensive watch photos to my low-res expensive pda, I'll feel better about having already wasted my money.

      This might make you feel a bit better:
      Palm and Wrist Camera.

      It lets you transfer pics from the original wrist camera to a PalmOS device, via infrared.

      Quite nifty.

      Cheers,
      Jim in Tokyo

      --
      -- My Weblog.
  3. Re:Fun? Practical? by theancient2 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Why does everything have to run Linux? Or, more importantly, why does someone always have to point out whether or not product X runs or could potentially Linux?

    I think it's much more relevent to discuss the possibilities of setting up a Beowulf cluster of these. You may complain that wristwatch camera doesn't have a big enough resolution, but imagine the quality you'd get with an array of 9 wristwatch cameras.